Like the title says, I’m going to provide you with a 45-minute video / blog tutorial on how to create an entire Kong 16-Patch design, using nothing more than a Rex file and some imagination.

Those familiar with the methods for my tutorials know that I usually provide the project files along with the technique. Nope. Not this time. Instead, I’m providing the rex file I used to create most of these drums. That way you can try it out yourself and follow along with the tutorial. Give a man a fish, they say, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he’ll never go hungry. So here’s the single Rex in a zip file: trails-rex

This method starts off with a Combinator, then two 6:2 Mixers, a spider audio/merger, and the obvious Kong Drum Designer. Then I go into how to set up the drums one at a time, starting with the Kick Drum. Using the Nurse Rex player, you load the rex file (and this can be any rex file, and start copying/pasting the rex loop one at a time into the first 8 pads. That gives you enough room to work creating all the drums you need, such as the Kick, a few toms, some snares, an open and closed hi hat, and even a reverse drum, and some other more off-the wall sounds.

After you do this, I’ll show you how you can set up the top 4 pads in Kong to trigger other devices (in this case Thor, but you can trigger any other device in Reason that accepts a Gate trigger, which is just about everything).

Finally, I go into programming the Combinator and adding some extra global Effects to play around with the tone and reverb of your drums as a whole. So check out the videos below for a complete tutorial on how to mess around with Kong and create some kick butt drums!

So that’s how you do it, or at least one of a million ways in which you can design a few drums in a Kong patch. What’s your favorite new Kong trick, and do you have any other suggestions or ideas? Please share them and let us all know.

Thanks Adam. I’ll keep the tutorials coming. As the title says: 101 Creative tutorials. I’m only on #27. Not that that is a true guide, but it’s an unofficial goal for me. So there’s plenty more to come. Please keep watching, commenting, suggesting, and sharing your thoughts. All my best! Rob

Patrick,
I wrote you on the forum, but I wanted to respond to you here as well. I can’t say I’ll have enough time to devote to working on patches for you. But I will do what I can. Send me an email at webmaster@reason101.net and we can discuss it. And thanks for watching and commenting. All my best. Rob

Thank for the tutorial, it really helped me out. was getting bored with the very small selection that originally came with reason. But I’ve got a slight problem and hopefully you or someone can help me out with it. I’ve followed all the steps and hooked all wires up same as shown, but every time i hit a pad all 4synths go off as well. Is there any way that I can get it to where they only go off when the pad assigned to each synth is hit? thank, and look forward to learning some new things from ya.

@Draon84,
I believe what’s probably happening is you are playing the combinator, which in effect plays all the combined instruments together (the synths at the same time). If this is the case, there are two ways to avoid this:
1. Open up the Combinator programmer, and for all the synths connected to the Kong device, deselect the “Receive Notes” checkbox (located at the bottom left part of the Combinator programmer panel).
2. Alternately, create a track for Kong (right-click on the Kong device within the Combinator and select “Create track for Kong”). Then go to the sequencer and ensure the Kong device has focus and you are playing Kong directly (bypassing the Combinator).

That’s probably where the problem lies, but this type of situation could also occur if you linked all the pads together in a “Link” pad group, but I don’t think I showed that in the tutorial. At least not for the synths. So tell me if either #1 or #2 above worked for you. If not, and if you are still having problems, send me a direct Email message with the file (at webmaster@reason101.net) and I’ll have a look at your setup.

Thanks Rob,
realized after I sent that that it only accurred when I used my midi drum pads. I could hit everything within the combinator individually and everything would be fine. For now its good, may have to do fix 1 if I deciede to play the drum parts live some time though. But i do have another problem, tring to do a side chain compression bass duck using the kong template that you showed and created. i found a tutorial on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4vQN2pRhpg&feature=related), but it was for redrum. I attemped to do it, but had a complete fail. if it will help to hear whats going on in the song, you can hear it at http://soundcloud.com/draon/full-metal-dubstep. thanks for any help you may be able to give and thank for the fixes to my other problem as well.

Dragon,
Let me take a look at it and see if I can come up with something for you. I generally don’t work on this stuff over the weekend. At least this weekend is a bit off for me because I have other plans. But I’ll see about looking at this at some point next week and let you know my results. Thanks for posting!